


But I Will Not Sink

by Silfrvarg



Category: DCU (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Bad Guys Being Bad, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Torture, Whump Exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-20 22:59:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14903793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silfrvarg/pseuds/Silfrvarg
Summary: When Nightwing and Robin are ambushed, Nightwing is just glad that Robin managed to get away. Unfortunately Nightwing didn't, and things are about to get Not Fun.





	But I Will Not Sink

**Author's Note:**

> This is my fic for the whump exchange, written for the wonderful @bluejayawe. Their prompt was "Don't you fucking touch him-" and they listed lots of tropes so I chose kidnapping, concussions, unconsciousness, manhandling, drowning and water boarding.
> 
> My apologies for not writing much of the rest of the young justice team, I've only seen a few episodes and I'm not super confident with their characterisation in the cartoon so I just stuck with mostly Nightwing and Robin.
> 
> I hope you like it!

Patrolling the rooftops in Bludhaven isn’t what most people do in their ‘down time’, but Nightwing and Robin aren’t most people. For Dick, between leading Young Justice, running missions with the team, coordinating with the League and taking care of problems solo in Bludhaven, time to unwind is something of a rarity. Tim had noticed, because of course he had. His solution had been simple. Friday nights were now Nightwing and Robin team-ups.

It had started as training, and to a point it still was, after all who better to teach a new Robin a few tricks than the old one? As Tim continued to improve though they kept it going, and by now it’s more a way to cut loose and have some fun at the end of the week. A light patrol through Bludhaven with someone to watch his back and splitting a pizza on the rooftop is a good way to end the week. It also gives Dick the chance to hang out with his little brother.

Tim is much more serious than Dick had been at his age and tends to be concerned about everyone’s needs except his own. It hadn’t escaped Dick’s notice that this whole ‘Friday night patrol’ idea had been Tim’s way of trying to help him de-stress. Dick figures it was only fair he uses them to return the favour, to help out his little brother by drawing him out of his shell a little, by showing him that being a ‘legendary terror of the night’ didn’t have to be all business, it’s okay to have a little fun with it. If that means breaking up a slow night with a few games of rooftop tag or train surfing, then Dick isn’t going to complain.

Right now, they’re perched on the rooftops overlooking the shipping yards. There had been some chatter among the lower level thugs that something was going down here tonight, and, by the looks of things, they’d been right on the money.

“Robin, what’ve we got?” Nightwing asks, taking the opportunity to stretch out his shoulders.

Robin hums to himself in thought, flicking the switch on his lenses to activate the night vision and scanning the stacks of containers.

“There’s two SUVs parked down there, and thermal signatures are showing five people. They’re standing by one of the shipping crates in the third row, seem to be talking business,” Robin grins suddenly, too many teeth to be friendly, “At this hour, I don’t think it’s the legitimate kind. Are we crashing their party?”

“Well, they’re practically screaming ‘shady deal going down’ aren’t they? It’s be a shame to ignore such a blatant invitation.” Nightwing’s answering grin has the same sharp edge to it.

Glancing at each other, Nightwing and Robin go on the hunt, leaping down to land silently on the tops of the containers and running across them until they’re perched just above where the meeting was going down.

The five people are having a heated discussion about prices and quantities over an open crate of obviously illegal firearms, and Nightwing has to roll his eyes a little, not that anyone could see behind the white lenses, because really these are some truly inept criminals.

Nightwing and Robin watch for about half a minute, just long enough that the cameras in their domino masks will have some lovely high definition recordings of the criminals agreeing to a price and exchanging the illegal weapons.

“You know Robin, it’s so considerate when criminals do our jobs for us.” Nightwing says, voice playful and pitched to carry.

Five guns come up, pointing at the top of the container where the voice had come from, but Nightwing and Robin are already gone, dropping down behind the now panicked dealers.

“Boo.” Robin deadpans.

The criminals have the time to turn halfway back around before Nightwing and Robin are leaping into the fray, escrima sticks and bo staff hitting at arms and legs with painful sounding thwacks. By the time any of them get their guns pointed in the right direction, three of them are already down for the count.

The last two are pointing their rifles vaguely in their direction, but even from this far Nightwing can see their hands are shaking. He slinks forwards dangerously, Robin mirroring him on his left side, the two of them moving with a predator’s grace.

The sight of two vigilantes stalking towards them with matching smirks is enough to make one of the dealers drop his gun and run.

“Robin.” Nightwing says, nodding his head in the direction of the runner.

Robin is already moving, throwing a disk out to hit the fleeing dealer behind the knee hard enough to make him stumble and fall. When he comes to a stop, the end of Robin’s bow staff is resting on his chest, the younger vigilante standing above him with a chiding expression.

“Don’t be in such a hurry to leave, we’d be sad to see you miss out.” Robin says with a smirk.

Behind him Nightwing has already disarmed the last remaining dealer and kicked away all five guns, just so nobody is tempted to do anything particularly stupid while he zip-ties their hands.

Robin hauls up his dealer and binds his hands, before giving him a shove in the back. “Walk.”

By the time Robin and his reluctant guest get back to the rest of the party Nightwing has already made quick work of zip-tying them all and lining them up out of the way against one of the containers. Robin drops his one off with the rest of his friends, before heading over to the large crate of illegal weapons and munitions that Dick is standing over.

Nightwing is examining the weapons, and he whistles low in appreciation, “This is some high-level nastiness here. If these had hit the streets we could have had a real problem on our hands.”

Robin nods in agreement, “Makes you wonder where they got it, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, it does. I wouldn’t have expected criminals this inept to have gotten their hands on hardware like this. For all this gear, they went down easy, almost-“ Nightwing pauses, senses going alert.

Robin has his staff out, looking around, and he finishes Nightwing’s thought, “Almost too easy?”

Nightwing has the escrima stick is hand and is scanning the surroundings, looking for any hint of trouble.

“Ambush. Has to be. This was too easy.”

“Where?” Robin asks, eyes flicking from the corners of the containers that make up this block to the top of the stacks, trying to gauge where the attack will come from.

The tell-tale hiss of a gas canister has Nightwing swinging back to the crate full of weapons, which is now putting off clouds of gas that he very much does not want to risk breathing.

“Gas!” He shouts, dropping one of his sticks to pull out the gas mask from one of his pouches.

Behind him Robin is doing the same, but there’s a low hissed curse as adrenalin fuelled fingers fumble, dropping the mask for a few crucial seconds before Robin manages to get it clasped over his face. Robin didn’t take more than half a breath in, but whatever this stuff is it’s strong enough that it doesn’t seem to matter as he is already swaying on his feet.

Nightwing has a hand on his shoulder and is trying to see how much he’s been affected by whatever this gas is when there’s the sudden sound of metal squealing and the doors to the shipping crates on either side of them burst open.

There’s no time to count them all as they rush out and quickly surround them, and, as Nightwing launches into the fight with a low sound of anger, he supposes the only good thing about this is that they’re not armed with guns. Most of them have telescoping batons out, a few have riot shields, whoever these men are, it seems the plan is to take Nightwing and Robin alive.

As Nightwing traps one mans wrist with his escrima sticks and twists hard enough that he hears it snap, he decides that he’s going to make them regret that.

At the moment he’s trying to take down the attackers directly around him, just enough to get some distance, to see what the hell they are dealing with. He takes out the man on his left with a spinning kick to the jaw and takes the opportunity to back up a step and glance behind to see how Robin is faring.

Robin is upright and fighting, and Nightwing feels a surge of relief at that, but he’s clearly been affected by the gas; his balance seems off, and he’s fighting more defensively than he usually does.

One of the men attacking them tries to take advantage of Nightwing’s switch of focus, sweeping his baton down to try and take out his knee. Nightwing blocks the strike with one of his sticks and rams the other one into his chest. Hard.

“Robin!” He calls out, catching his eye and using one stick to make a circling motion.

Robin spins his bo staff around him, forcing his attackers to back up, and then springs backwards at the same time as Nightwing does, the two of them meeting back to back in the middle of the circle of attackers.

They have enough breathing room to get a rough headcount now, and Nightwing is not liking their odds. Whoever sent these men isn’t playing around, not if they’re sending twenty men to take down two vigilantes. Ten to one odds aren’t _impossible_ , he’s done it before, they both have, but in a fight like this, surrounded and cut off, and with Robin not able to fight at full strength? Well, it’s still not impossible to win. It’s just really really unlikely.

Which means they probably need some backup.

Unfortunately, as he slams his sticks into one man’s stomach and kicks another in the chest, all he hears when he tries the radio is static.

“Robin, is your radio working?” He asks under his breath, circling with his sticks out defensively and feeling Robin match him step for step.

“No. We’re jammed. Probably happened when the gas was released.” Robin says, and Nightwing can hear how his voice is a little _too_ precise, compensating for the effects of the gas.

Robin’s staff is hitting as hard as ever, but even without being able to see him moving Nightwing can tell that his reaction time is off.

“Well, that’s inconvenient,” Nightwing sighs, moving his sticks a hair to slow to catch a heavy blow from a baton that hits him in the forearm instead, “Would have been nice to bring some friends to the party.”

Robin doesn’t respond, too busy fending off attacks as the attackers press him more and more. They can see that he’s been affected by the gas, they know that he’s the weaker link in this fight.

He knows it too.

“Nightwing-“ he starts, and Nightwing knows exactly what he’s going to say because Robin, _this_ Robin cares about everyone except himself.

“Don’t even think about it.” Nightwing says firmly, punctuating it with a series of lighting fast hits to the nearest attackers, feeling a savage sort of satisfaction as he feels the force of every hit through the sticks.

Robin huffs in annoyance, sliding the staff to hook the legs out from one attacker, tripping him and then sweeping it into another’s kneecap with a sickening crunch. “I’m just saying-“

“I know what you’re saying,” Nightwing growls, kneeing the closest guy in the crotch, “And the answer is _no_. I’m not going to let you have all the fun.”

“Fine,” Robin grunts, and Nightwing hears muffled cries of pain as Robin launches into a particularly ruthless flurry of strikes, spinning his staff around him to simultaneously attack and defend.

They fight on for what seems like an hour but in reality is probably a minute or two. They’re on the defensive, and they haven’t been overrun yet, but they haven’t gained any ground either, they’re still surrounded. It’s a game of endurance, as fighters on both sides begin to tire and make mistakes. The unfortunate truth is that the attackers can _afford_ to make mistakes, they have the numbers to lose, if one of them goes down another will be there to take his place.

As Nightwing hears a small, too familiar cry of pain and the clatter of a staff hitting the ground he knows they’re not going to win this. They still fight.

Nightwing turns as much as he dares, trying to keep an eye on Robin without being overwhelmed. Robin is disarmed, but he’s still standing, still fighting with everything he has, punching and kicking and aiming to do as much damage as he can before being taken down.

In the end though, between the effect of the gas, the fatigue of the long fight and the loss of his main weapon, it’s only a matter of moments before a hard blow to the side sends Robin to the ground, and the men are on him, raining down blow after blow with their batons even as he struggles to get back up.

Nightwing sees red, because that’s his _brother_ they’re beating. With a sound closer to a snarl than anything he fights, slamming his sticks into wrists and elbows and knees with the intent to _shatter_ , fighting to get to Robin’s side.

Without Robin at his back he’s quickly overwhelmed though, and in a matter of moments there’s a man on each of his arms, twisting them up behind his back and forcing him to kneel on the asphalt.

Breathing heavily Nightwing twists around as much as he can, looking for Robin.

Robin has been dragged up off the ground and is also kneeling, though the two men holding his arms seem to be supporting him more than anything as he lists sideways dangerously. There’s blood dripping down from a cut on his temple and his lip is split, Nightwing can only imagine how many bruises the uniform is hiding. He’s conscious though, glaring at the men who are holding him.

Nightwing feels a bit of relief, things are bad but at least Robin is awake and aware, they just have to play this smart, wait for an opportunity…

There’s someone walking up to them, someone who hadn’t been in the fight. Then men who had attacked them were wearing helmets and head to toe tactical gear. This man is wearing the gear, but he doesn’t have a helmet, and Nightwing can see a heavy-set face with close cropped black hair, shot through with silver, and cruel grey eyes. Everything about this man screams authority, so Nightwing has a feeling he’s found the leader of this little operation.

“So, care to tell me why you’ve gone through all this effort just to have a chat?” Nightwing asks with an insubordinate grin.

The man’s face twists into an ugly sneer, and Nightwing knows his lack of respect is hitting a nerve. He knows this sort of man, he’s met a few like him, they thrive off respect, off awe, off fear, but they couldn’t handle even the smallest challenge to their authority. It’s a great way to put them off balance.

As the man walks up to him, gets right in his face and slams a fist into his gut, Nightwing reflects that it’s also a great way to get them angry. Nightwing reflexively tries to double over, breathing through his nose hard, because that punch was no joke, but before he can get far the man’s hand has shot out to grab him firmly by the chin, forcing him to look up and meet those cold grey eyes.

“I need you alive boy, for now. I don’t need you _unharmed_ , so I would think very, _very_ carefully about that when deciding how helpful you want to be. Until then, shut up or I will shut you up.”

The man squeezes his chin hard once in warning and then lets him go.

As Nightwing is leaning back to try and decide how to play this, the man is making a beeline for Robin, and Nightwing can see him eyeing up the younger hero like a side of beef.

For the second time that night, Nightwing sees _red_ , and he struggles in the grip of the men holding him.

“You stay the fuck away from him!” He snaps, voice harsh, “Or I swear-“

The man stops, and Nightwing hears a low laugh. It’s not a nice laugh.

“You’ll do what, exactly? What _can_ you do? Even if you _weren’t_ kneeling on the ground, we both know you have _rules_ , you won’t _kill_. Don’t make threats if you can’t back them up, boy.” The man sneers.

He steps up, eyes raking over Robin, something cruel in his stance, “Although, I suppose I don’t really _need_ both of you.”

He takes a step towards Robin and pulls the pistol from the holster on his leg. Robin forces himself to sit up straight, meeting his eyes and glaring defiantly. If this man was expecting Robin to beg, well, he’s going to be sorely disappointed.

“Hey!” Nightwing yells, and without stopping to think he _moves_ , using every bit of strength he has to slam himself backwards, surprising the men who are holding him as he drags them down with him, gets his legs free and springs to his feet.

He wastes absolutely no time breaking arms and faces, thanking whoever is watching that they hadn’t taken his belt yet as he digs into the pouches and throws every single one of his remaining smoke bombs.

He’s caught them off guard, and by the time they start fighting back instead of just gaping at shock he’s got three batarangs out and flying at the leader’s arm. Even through the tactical armour the man is wearing, one of the batarangs bites deep, drawing blood and forcing him to drop the pistol, then Nightwing is on him. The men are already closing in, and Nightwing knows he’ll only get one good hit in, but he doesn’t have to win this.

There’s no grace in his attack this time, no great strategy, no thinking three moves ahead. He just punches the asshole in the face as hard as he can.

He’s tackled to the ground a moment later, and clearly the men have taken exception to his attack on their leader because they’re certainly not holding back with their batons, and Nightwing feels renewed sympathy for Robin because it’s even less fun than it looked.

He’s busy protecting his head with his arms when a heavy boot slams into his ribs and he can’t help but cry out as all his breath is driven out.

The assault lets up though, and as he tries to catch a breath he feels himself being dragged back up to his knees. A stinging slap across his face grounds him even as it makes his head ring, and he blinks and refocusses on the man in front of him.

“And what did you hope to accomplish by _that_ display, boy, other than a broken rib?” The leader asks, looking at Nightwing intently.

Nightwing raises an eyebrow behind the domino and nods towards where Robin was, or, more to the point, where Robin _had_ been.

The leader turns slowly, taking in the sight of the two men who had been holding Robin, clearly unconscious in the slowly clearing cloud of smoke. Robin had taken Nightwing’s distraction and ran with it, and Nightwing couldn’t be prouder.

“I suppose it’s a good thing you only needed one of us.” Nightwing says, his voice dripping with faux regret. He sees the muscles in the leader’s neck and back tense, and he can almost feel the rage pouring off the man.

Without warning the leader spins around, grabbing Nightwing by his hair and bringing his knee up to slam into his face, and Nightwing feels the crunch before he hears it.

The pain is blinding, or maybe that’s the way that the blood is roaring in his ears and his head is spinning like a batarang, and it’s several moments before his vision clears enough to make out the blurry shape of the man in front of him.

He looks up in what he hopes is the man’s direction and grins up at him, spitting out a bloody tooth. His nose is broken, even through the mask, he’s sure he’ll have two black eyes too, his lip is split in at least two places and he’ll be lucky if there’s no facial fractures given how hard that hit was, but he still grins through bloodstained teeth, because he might have lost this fight, but so did they, because _Robin got away_.

The leader is still, and Nightwing thinks he’d probably glaring at him but it’s really hard to tell with the way his vision keeps blurring.

“Take him.” The man says at last, and someone is grabbing Nightwing’s hair, _again_ , before he feels the sting of a needle in his neck and everything fades out.

Even as he slumps in the grip of the men holding him, Nightwing is still grinning.

* * *

Dick wishes that this was the first time he’s woken up chained and hanging from his wrists, unfortunately it’s a familiar situation. That doesn’t make it any less painful, his shoulders are going to _hate_ him in a couple of hours. Come to think of it, they hate him now.

He hasn’t opened his eyes yet, he’s still taking stock of his situation, listening to what his body is telling him. Right now, it’s telling him “ouch”.

His head is still spinning, even with his eyes closed, and it’s hard to focus on anything beyond the pressure in his skull.

Ah, concussions. The gift that keeps on giving.

Beyond the heavy pain in his head his wrists are the sharpest pain, the heavy metal cuffs are digging into his skin, and he can feel a sticky wetness which tells him he’s already bleeding. His shoulders are the next most obvious pain, the strain of hanging from his arms wreaking havoc on his muscles. His chest and abdomen ache all over, a particularly sharp point of pain on his right side where he knows has at least one broken rib, courtesy of that kick from the leader.

They’d removed the upper part of his shirt, which he doesn’t want to think too hard about, but he is willing to bet he’s still black and blue all over. He can still feel his mask on his face, which is a bit of a relief, because getting unmasked makes the whole secret identity thing a bit hard, but also confusing. Perhaps whoever has taken him simply doesn’t care who he is?

Slowly he cracks his eyes open, keeping his head hanging low as it had been when he was unconscious. His mask is still on, but clearly they’d figured out how to retract his lenses, which is a little unsettling. Not quite as unsettling as them getting him out of his suit, which had a _lot_ of nasty little traps to stop that from happening, but still unsettling.

He can’t lift his head, not without letting whoever was watching him notice he was awake, so he has to make do with looking at the ground. Peeking between his lashes he can see that he was right on the money about the bruising, his chest was turning some truly spectacular colours. Moving his head as slightly as he can he sees that the floor is cement, which combined with the cool draft across his skin and the feeling of open space around him tells him he is probably in some sort of warehouse. Why is it always a warehouse?

He can hear three sets of footsteps approaching though, so he let his eyes fall completely shut again and focuses on keeping his breathing low and even, hoping that whoever was coming didn’t notice he’d woken up. It’s only delaying the inevitable, but Dick is all for avoiding whatever comes next for as long as possible. People don’t usually chain you up from your wrists if they’re planning a nice chat over brunch.

No, he wasn’t Dick anymore, it was business time, he had to be Nightwing. Dick was just a man, a man could be hurt, a man could break. Nightwing was made of stronger stuff. He could handle whatever these men could dish out.

He kept himself still, forcing himself not to react as whoever was approaching stopped in front of him. He could feel their gaze on him, it made his skin crawl and if he hadn’t been focused on not reacting he might have shuddered.

He thinks he might be in the clear as he feels the person moving away, but then without warning a fist is slamming into his gut. If he’d known it was coming, he might have been able to stop himself, but the combination of surprise and pain has him whipping his head up, eyes flashing open with a stifled groan.

He finds himself looking at the leader, who was flanked by two of his men. Hanging up like this, he has to lower his gaze a little to meet that of his captor, but those cold grey eyes leave no doubt as to who has the power here. This close he can see the hard lines of the man’s face, the unyielding set to his jaw. Even just looking at him, he can tell this is a man who is used to getting what he wants.

For whatever reason, he wants Nightwing.

The two men stare at each other for a moment, neither willing to be the first to look away. The silence stretches uncomfortably.

It’s a bad idea, he knows it is, he remembered the man’s reaction last time he mouthed off. Then again, the man had just punched him in the gut, _again_ , for no damned reason at all, so he’s not sure holding his tongue is going to do him any favours.

“You know, I think we might have gotten off on the wrong foot here,” Nightwing says with a smile, “Let’s start over. I’m Nightwing, I enjoy long runs across rooftops-“

A fierce backhand snaps his head to the left, and he rolls with it, working his jaw quietly for a moment and trying to ignore the way the room spins around him, before turning back to face the man, undeterred.

“See, this is _usually_ the point where you’re meant to introduce yourself. It’s only polite. Otherwise I’m just going to have to think of you as kidnapper number twenty-something.” Nightwing continues as though nothing had happened.

The man is still staring at him, and Nightwing has to admit, if only to himself, that it’s a little unsettling. There’s anger there, and something like amusement, but it’s the underlying sense of cruelty in the man’s gaze that has him on edge.

“My men call me Stacker, you, however, can address me as Sir.” The man says, voice demanding obedience.

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen.” Nightwing says with a smirk.

He’s expecting the blow this time, and doesn’t react when the man punches him in the stomach again, doesn’t let himself curl against the abused area like he desperately wants to. His chest and abdomen are already one huge bruise, he _really_ doesn’t need any more. Too bad Stacker seems quite fond of punching him there.

“Here is what is going to happen here, boy,” Stacker says, stepping right into his personal space, close enough that he can feel his breath on his cheek, “I am going to ask you to tell me everything you know about Mount Justice, and about the abilities and weaknesses of the meta humans on your so-called _team_. You are going to refuse to answer me, or, at least, you will at first.”

Nightwing opens his mouth to say damn right he’s going to refuse, but Stacker’s hand shoots out and he grabs him roughly by the jaw, so tight that he can feel his teeth grinding together painfully.

“I’m not finished,” Stacker says, his voice quiet and all the more menacing for it, “You’re going to refuse, and I’m going to hurt you. You probably think you’re strong willed, stubborn. I’m sure this isn’t the first time someone has tried to get information out of you. I’m sure you refused them, and I’m sure you think you’ll be able to refuse _me_.”

“One thing you need to know though, about all those men who have tried to break you before? They were _not me_. I do not _try_ to break people. I succeed. Everyone breaks eventually boy, it’s just a matter of how long they choose to suffer before they do. I know you won’t make the smart choice here, but it’s not going to make a difference. No matter what happens, I _will_ get what I want.”

Stacker is still holding his jaw closed, so he can’t exactly answer. He settles for glaring at the man instead, doing his best to say what he wants to say with his eyes. _Bring it on_.

“There’s that strong will I was expecting, I’m glad. It wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying if you gave up straight away. I expect you’re going to make me work for it.” Stacker says, and he’s smiling now, a pleased, content sort of smile which might have been pleasant on another man’s face.

Stackhouse lets out a piercing whistle, and Nightwing can hear more men approaching.

He takes a moment to look around and get an idea of where he is. As he’d suspected, he’s in some sort of warehouse, the chain binding his wrists is hanging from one of the steel beams above. The room they’re in is large, and though it is mostly open, it is far from empty. There are crates of weapons and ammunition, assembly benches covered with all sorts of equipment, even a couple of chairs and a table set up in one corner, with men standing up from what looks like a game of poker. Clearly this is a well-established base of operations.

Most disturbing however is the line of cages along the wall to his left. They’re well built, strong cages, and they’re clearly designed to hold _people_. Thankfully, they’re all empty, but given that Stacker wants to know about his team, about his _friends_ , well, he can guess what the cages are for.

He doesn’t have a chance to look around any further though, as about a dozen men have answered Stacker’s whistle, and are standing around looking eager and more than a little bloodthirsty. Several of them are sporting bruises and cuts, and it seems they’re more than ready to dish out a little payback.

“Men, please make our new guest feel welcome,” Stacker says, stepping back from Nightwing, still smiling, “Just don’t mess up his face so much that he can’t talk. We do need him to tell us what he knows. Eventually.”

The men close in, circling like sharks, and there is absolutely nothing Nightwing can do against so many opponents while dangling from his wrists.

“Oh this is going to _suck_.” Nightwing breathes, not caring that the men around him hear and grin.

As a man sporting two missing teeth slams a nice right hook into his left side, he clenches his fists and sets his jaw, determined to get through this with as much composure as he can.

That resolve lasts as a man with a freshly broken nose uses Stacker’s tactic of hitting him in the abdomen, as someone with two black eyes hits him in the sternum hard enough to make him wheeze, as someone he can’t see behind him punched him right above his right kidney.

He tries to keep track of it all, tries to match assailants to blows. The men are merciless though, and he’s already injured and in pain. As punch after punch lands, hitting his stomach, his back, his sides, his chest, he finds it harder and harder to keep from reacting. He does his best, containing himself to winces and grimaces whenever someone lands a particularly hard hit, but he freely admits he doesn’t do stoic and brooding nearly as well as Batman does.

He doesn’t want to give the men hurting him, _beating_ him a reaction, he doesn’t want them to see that he’s in pain. When one of them slams a fist into his broken rib and he feels something _give_ he can’t help but cry out, a choked, cut off sound of pure agony.

Encouraged by the cry the men beating him start to focus on his right side, where his broken rib is. As the pain in his side goes from unpleasant to utter hell, his breath is coming in harsh pants and he can’t help the short groans that every new hit seems to wring out of him.

It feels like an age, but finally the blows slow, and then they seem to stop altogether. He doesn’t remember closing his eyes but he struggles to open them again, trying to focus his blurring vision on the men around him, trying to guess where the next hit will come from.

He starts with a full body flinch as someone touches his face, snapping his head back and then groaning as it makes the world spin and black spots dance in front of his eyes. He doesn’t get very far though, and the hand is back, firm but almost gentle as the owner forces him to look at them.

It’s Stacker, and he forces himself to meet his captor’s eyes with a glare.

“I hope you enjoyed your welcome, boy. This is only the beginning.” Stacker says with a cruel smirk.

By the time Nightwing recovers himself enough to think about talking back, Stacker is already walking away, followed by the rest of the men.

He wants to call after the man, say something clever, let him know that he can take whatever they dish out, but his vision is going dark around the edges and he can’t fight the blackness as it rises up to swallow him whole.

* * *

He jerks to awareness a split instant before he hits the rough cement, the fall driving the breath out of him. It takes a moment to blink the spots from his eyes, for the spinning to slow down to manageable levels, and he tries to get his bearings, tries to anticipate what’s coming.

The heavy chain that was holding him up is slack now, though it’s still attached to his wrists. As he heaves in deep breaths on the floor he has to hide a grin. They’ve left him with a weapon.

Clearly tired of watching him fighting with his lungs, one of the men moves forwards, goes to grab him and drag him who knows where, only to get a face full of metal as Nightwing snaps the chain around his wrists out like a whip.

Quicker than thought he’s on his feet, rushing one of the three thugs who are still standing.

The chain is a handicap. His hands are still bound, that limits his movements, restricts him to only the most basic of attacks, and without his hands free to help his balance he can’t try any of his fancier footwork either.

However, as the first man discovered, the chain is also a crude, but effective weapon, and before the men can react he’s swinging it at foot height. Two of the men scramble out of the way. The third doesn’t, and the chain catches him in the ankle, making him stumble to the ground.

Nightwing is already yanking the chain back, using it’s weight to get it swinging faster, and as it shoots out for a third time he’s rewarded with twin cries of pain as he catches both the other thugs at knee height.

The struggle has caught the attention of the whole room however, and as Nightwing sees men rushing towards him, at least a dozen, he knows this is not going to end well for him.

He bares his teeth in a sharp-edged grin, because it’s not going to end well for _them_ either, not if he has anything to say about it.

Stalking forwards he kicks one of the men who is struggling to rise, pulling the chain towards him and coiling it as best he can, shortening the length to something more manageable in a close quarters fight, because as the first man reaches him he is sure this is going to be _very_ close quarters.

The first man gets the end of the chain to the face, the next is caught in the chest buy it, and, as Nightwing ducks and weaves among the rough men surrounding him, more and more men end up tangled in the length of the chain, forming a knot of people that Nightwing uses to trip up the men who remain free.

It’s painful, confusing, as men try to attack and defend, try to run in all directions at once and only succeed in tangling themselves further, sharp cries and angry yells ringing out as ally turns on ally. Nightwing grins at the chaos and confusion, and he can see the appeal of a weapon like Catwoman’s whip in a situation like this.

The difference between a whip and a length of chain attached to his own wrists, however, is that he could _drop_ a whip. By tangling the men up in his chain, he’s traded the possibility of escape for the chance to inflict some hurt on his captors. As he finally runs out of slack in the chain, and finds himself dragged harshly to the ground, he still doesn’t regret it.

From a strategic standpoint he is vastly outnumbered, and every man he injures badly enough is one less to come after him in the next struggle, a piece of advice he’d been given by Bruce. If you don’t like the odds, change them. That isn’t the main reason though. Mostly it’s just sheer spite. Even though it might be smarter not to resist, not to goad the men holding him into hurting him any worse that they are already planning, he’s not about to go down without a fight.

His wrists are pinned, held by the chain that’s gone taught, that doesn’t mean he can’t lash out with his feet, as the first man to approach him when he’s downed learns. He gets three more solid kicks in before someone traps that leg, two more before the second leg is pinned down, and then they’re on him.

He finds himself pinned down, a man on each leg and one holding the chain attached to his wrists. If he could get some momentum going, he could dislodge any of the three easily enough, but he can’t free himself from all three at once. More than that, now that the adrenalin has worn off his arms and shoulders tingle and burn with a fierce pain, blood flow returning with a vengeance after hours of hanging from his wrists. While he’d been fighting he’d been able to ignore the complaints of his body, but now they’re lining up to demand his attention.

He’s been subdued, for now at any rate, but despite the pain in his arms, aside from some scrapes and bruises he’s not sporting any new injuries. Judging by the racket going on behind him as men untangle themselves from the web of chain he’d spun around them, he’s taken a good handful of his captor’s men out of the fight.

He might not have managed to escape, but this is still a win.

As he lies still, pinned to the ground and staring at the roof of the warehouse, he is still grinning. It’s not quite the same vicious grin as before, the one that promised pain to anyone that got in his way, instead it’s a small sharp curl of satisfaction. He might be the one wearing the chains for now, but that doesn’t mean he’s helpless, not by any stretch of the imagination.

As if echoing his thoughts, Stacker is suddenly there, looking down at Nightwing from just out of kicking range, in case he manages to get a leg free. Nightwing raises his head to look at him properly, seemingly undisturbed by the way he is pinned to the ground.

“I suppose you think you’ve won some sort of victory here, is that right boy?” Stacker asks.

Nightwing doesn’t bother to deny it, just raises his eyebrows and tosses his head to gesture at the men behind him with a smirk.

“Ah yes, you do seem to be doing a good job of whittling down the men I have available to hold you. I’m almost impressed,” Stacker says, smirking right back, “Five men down, possibly six, and you with only minor injuries? I can see how you might calculate that as a win.”

“There is one thing you have not taken into consideration yet. My response,” Stacker’s voice is mild but firm, almost teacher to student, “You have attempted to escape. You have injured my men in doing so. What might I now do to you? What form of punishment will deter you from further attempts?”

“There are the obvious punishments. Pain, restricting food and water, depriving you of sleep, of any form of rest or comfort. In another situation, they might work, but here they would be a little redundant. You see, I’m already going to hurt you. You will not eat or drink without my say so, you will not sleep unless I allow it, and any comfort or rest you find will be fleeting at best. There is little I can threaten you with that I was not already planning on doing to you.”

Nightwing lifts his chin in defiance, refusing to be cowed, but Stacker just smiles coldly at him, seeming almost pleased by his refusal to show fear.

“So, the usual punishments are unnecessary, and we both know that you’re going to take any opportunity you can find to escape. It’s what you’ve been trained to do, and I am willing to admit you have been well trained. Unfortunately, that leaves me with… more extreme measures. I’m afraid I can’t afford to waste my men on foiling your escape attempts.”

Stacker looks sideways, nodding to someone that Nightwing can’t see, and two more men move forwards.

His left leg is being lifted up, held firm, and he can guess what’s going to happen, can guess that this is less about causing him pain and more about immobilizing him. It’s still going to hurt like hell.

As three men pin his leg in place and _wrench_ his foot sideways, as he feels bone twisting and _snapping_ -

It’s not a scream, not really, it’s too loud, too low. It’s a yell, a bellow, a roar, a sound of pain that sounds too harsh and wild to have come from a human throat, much less his.

Everything is fuzzy for a moment, his vision swimming and whiting out, all he can hear is the roar of his own blood pounding in his ears.

Slowly, the world fades back in. He can dimly register the sound of harsh breathing, after a moment of thought he realises it’s his own, his chest heaving as he struggles to get his breathing under control. Under the sound of his own breaths he can hear laughter, sharp and mocking and he forces himself to ignore it. His vision is still a blur of shapes and colours, and he closes his eyes, tries to fight the dizziness that’s overwhelming him.

As the world slowly comes back, the pain comes back with it, rushing in impossible to ignore. It’s not the first time he’s broken bone, not the first time he’s felt ligaments snapping and tearing, but it never gets any easier. He focuses on controlling his breathing, slowly in, slowly out, bringing his body back under his control.

The pain spikes as someone grabs the chain and uses it to haul him up. Instinctively he tries to fight against the hold, tries to get his legs under him to stand under his own power rather than let himself be hauled around like cargo.

His vision threatens to white out again, the blinding pain in his ankle stealing all thought or reason. As he comes back to himself he hopes he didn’t scream again.

He’s being held up, one man on each arm acting more as support than restraint, because there is no way that his ankle is going to bear his weight. He hasn’t looked yet. He doesn’t want to.

Much as his pride burns he can’t do much more than sag limply in the arms of the men holding him up, it’s a struggle just to keep his head up, to keep focused on the men around him rather than the bright spot of agony that is his ankle and foot.

Stacker is back in his face, because of course he is.

“I wish I hadn’t had to do that. I _was_ hoping to avoid doing any lasting damage to you, you are quite the commodity after all. A man with your training, in such peak physical condition?” Stacker rakes his eyes over Nightwing’s body, lingering on the bare chest in a predatory manner, “You’ll be worth a lot of money, even with the damage. I may even keep you for myself. I’m sure I could find a use for you, after some _extensive_ retraining of course.”

“Never going to happen.” Nightwing promises, his voice low, fierce and steady despite the pain.

“I suppose we’ll find out, won’t we?” Stacker says, voice seemingly mild, “If you behave, I will allow my men to strap your ankle and foot, so it heals straight. If you attempt to escape again, you won’t get far, and I will be forced to damage your foot further to discourage you. Whether or not you suffer permanent damage from your foolishness is up to you. I do hope you make the smart choice.”

He nods sharply to the men holding Nightwing up, “Take him.”

The men holding him start walking, and it takes all his concentration to keep from crying out as the movement jars his ankle. By the time they reach the line of cages on the far wall he is close to exhaustion, the effects of a nasty concussion, who knows what sort of sedative and the pain from his injuries taking him to the very edges of his endurance.

He lets himself drift after they set him down, no longer paying attention to his surroundings.

If Bruce could see him now he’d lecture him for dropping his guard around the enemy, for passing up an opportunity to gather information, to strategize. Nightwing would welcome the lecture right now, if it meant that Bruce, that _Batman_ was here to get him out of this.

A hand on his left foot jerks him painfully back to awareness, and he can’t stop himself from flinching away from it. The hand only tightens further in warning, and he forces himself to stay still, not wanting to injure himself further.

The man holding his ankle is clearly some sort of medic, judging by the well-stocked first aid kit he’s brought with him. He’s also clearly taking no chances with Nightwing, as one of the men who carried him is holding the other leg immobile to keep him from kicking out at the medic.

He keeps himself still as the medic splints and binds his ankle. He’s doing a good job, hands firm and professional, and although Nightwing is completely at his mercy like this, he’s not inflicting any more pain than necessary.

Nightwing feels a sudden rush of gratitude, and he hates himself for it. He shouldn’t be grateful for this man for having the decency _not_ to hurt him further, but he is. God help him, he is.

The medic finishes wrapping and stands without a word, saving him from further misplaced gratitude, and the men who were holding him let him go, leaving the cage and closing the door behind them.

His wrists are still cuffed together, but the heavy chain that had been connected to the cuffs has been removed. Clearly, they’re not going to leave him with such a weapon again, broken ankle or not. At least that will make it a little easier for him to get some rest, without having to drag a couple of pounds of metal chain with him.

Pulling himself carefully across the floor of the cage, he lowers himself with his back to the far wall, so he’s facing the entrance in case anyone approaches. Not that his vigilance will do him much good since he is unable to stand, but at the very least he shouldn’t be caught by surprise this way.

He has a brief internal argument, trying to decide whether it’s worth trying to stay awake and watch out for potential danger, or whether he should take the chance to rest while he still can. In the end, his body decides for him.

His head is still spinning from the concussion, and he doesn’t think he could stay awake if he tried. So he doesn’t try.

* * *

He doesn’t manage to snatch more than a couple of hours of rest before he wakes with a start at the sound of the cage being unlocked. He levers himself up so he’s almost sitting, unwilling to try and stand but not wanting to be completely vulnerable by remaining prone.

None of that makes a difference to the two men who physically drag him out of the cage, and he gingerly lifts his bad foot to make sure it doesn’t get dragged along on the floor.

“So, where are we going?” He asks mildly.

The men ignore him. Rude.

His question is answered though as they stop in the same clear area of the room where he had been hanging from yesterday. Was it yesterday, or just earlier today? He’d been doing his best to keep track of time, and he didn’t think he’d been here much longer than 24 hours, depending on how long he’d been unconscious from the sedative. And the concussion. And the beating earlier. Ok, so he hadn’t _really_ been able to keep track of time that well.

The two men that had dragged-slash-carried him over here drop him to the ground on his knees, which he supposes is better than standing for now, but it still burns his pride to have to look up at his captors.

Stacker is there, because of course he is, and he’s brought a half dozen of his men with him. They’ve come prepared too, some of them have the same batons they’d used to fight him earlier, one of them has a long length of electrical cord, he spots a pair of brass knuckles on another.

“What is it with bad guys and beatings?” He asks with a put-upon sigh, “I mean yeah, getting knocked around isn’t fun, but you _do_ know what I do for a living, right? This is pretty much my Tuesday night.”

A baton to the back is probably a warning to shut up, but what can he say? He’s a talker.

“I guess your right. It’s not really a living, I don’t really get paid, and the dental coverage could be better. I guess that makes it a hobby? Maybe volunteering? I wonder if I could write it off as a tax expense-“

Another strike, this time to the chest.

“Well if you don’t want me to talk, just say so. I got the impression that was the whole point of this exercise, right?” He asks, raising an eyebrow.

“It would be if you were saying anything _useful_ ,” Stacker says, looking at him with mild interest, “I have to admit I’m curious as to how long your sense of humour, limited as it is, holds up.”

“Hey, I don’t hear you making with the jokes,” Nightwing says, letting his head snap to the side as someone backhands him across the cheek, “At least the bad guys in Gotham can usually be counted on to make terrible puns when they’ve got a captive audience.”

A ringing slap to the other cheek leaves him blinking stars for a moment.

“I’d prefer you didn’t compare me to the costumed freaks you usually deal with. I think you’ll find I’m a different class of opponent entirely.” Stacker says threateningly.

Nightwing snorts dismissively, “Yeah, they all say that y’know? Riddler disses Penguin, Freeze Disses Riddler, Two-Face disses Riddler, Joker disses Riddler… wow, I’m sensing a trend there.”

He’s interrupted by the guy with the brass knuckles slamming a few punches into his chest and sides, and that’s probably a few ribs bruised, possibly cracked. He just hopes no more of them are broken. Broken ribs are a pain in the ass.

“Point is, every bad guy thinks he’s better than the rest of them, thinks he’s smarter, or stronger, or more dedicated. And yeah, Bane packs a mean punch, Scarecrow can get pretty inventive with his toxins, and the Joker has a truly nasty talent for destruction. Doesn’t matter though, they go down in the end. You will too.” Nightwing shrugs easily, not even flinching as another baton hits him.

“Bold words for someone kneeling in chains.” Stacker says with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, _for now_ ,” Nightwing meets Stacker’s gaze with a sharp grin, “I’d wager you’ll be spending more time in chains than I will.”

Stacker lashes out with a punch to the jaw, smirking cruelly at him, “Humour _and_ optimism. Oh, you will be fun to break.”

Nightwing turns his head to spit out a mouthful of blood, before turning back to stacker, still grinning with red-glazed teeth.

The men in charge of his beating seem to take this as the challenge it was intended as.

In a matter of moments his world narrows down to strikes and blows, sometimes a baton, sometimes brass knuckles, sometimes just a fist. The heavy-duty power cord makes the occasional appearance, and it’s a similar flavour of pain as the batons, more concentrated than the firsts, raising narrow welts that sting and burn. The brass knuckles hit hard, leaving deep bruising in their wake.

Apparently bored with fists and hand-held weapons, one of them kicks him hard in the side, thankfully his left side and _not_ in his already broken rib. The force of it knocks him down, and the men seem to take it as an invitation to start throwing in kicks as well.

It’s painful, and he has to admit it’s humiliating to be huddled on the ground getting beat to hell but being downed like this does allow him to protect himself, if only a little. The foetal position may be embarrassing, but it is effective all the same, and if the men around him think it’s a show of weakness to protect himself, well, they’re the ones beating on an unarmed, bound man. They’re hardly in any position to judge.

Time has long since lost meaning, and it could be minutes or damned near an hour before a sharp whistle has the men backing away with a few parting shots. He keeps his bound arms up, where they’ve been protecting his face and chest, still expecting attack.

He’s not expecting the hand that fists in his hair, dragging him painfully back up into a kneeling position, and he hisses at the fresh pain, glaring at Stacker. Stacker keeps his grip on Nightwing’s hair, forcing him to look at him.

“I hope you found that instructive,” He says with a dark sort of glee, “I certainly enjoyed it. You _do_ take a beating well.”

“I’d say I’m happy to please,” Nightwing grates out, “But we both know I’d be lying.”

“I’ll see you broken yet, boy.” Stacker says with a chuckle.

“Not likely.” Nightwing snaps back with a glare.

“We’ll see.” Stacker promises, finally releasing his grip on Nightwing’s hair, only to brush his hand down the side of his face, lightly lifting his chin up and studying him with an appreciative eye.

Nightwing pulls away from the touch, baring his teeth in a silent warning, only to be met with another chuckle.

“I think you need some time to… consider your situation,” Stacker says, “Men, make sure our guest stays on his knees, and has ample time to think. I’m sure you’ll find a way to keep him awake.”

With that, Stacker turns on his heel, half of the men following him, leaving Nightwing in the care of the other four.

Nightwing watches them leave warily, shifting his weight forwards slightly to take the pressure off his broken ankle. Unfortunately, given his position on his knees, it seems he has the choice between actively kneeling upright, which is already starting to strain his thigh muscles, or sitting back on top of his legs and putting pressure back on his ankle. Either way it’s going to hurt.

With nothing to do except kneel in an increasingly uncomfortable manner, the various injuries he’s sustained are making themselves known, loudly. His chest and back are covered in bruises and welts, some of them sting, others throb, one or two seem to burn and tingle just for some variety. The cuffs sit tightly on his wrists, rubbing against the cuts where they dug into his flesh as he was hanging from his chains. The broken rib on his right side is just another drop in a sea of pain, almost forgettable compared to the rest of it, but with every deep breath or careless movement it reminds him it’s there. His broken ankle is a heavy, grating sort of pain, and no matter how much he tries to keep pressure off it, there’s no way for him to keep all his weight off it while he’s kneeling like this.

He has to admit, leaving him to kneel here is an efficient way of torturing him, no one is actively hurting him, they’re just letting the existing injuries and his earlier concussion keep him in constant pain and discomfort. Not to mention the constant effort of keeping his weight off his injured ankle is acting almost like a stress position.

It’s not the worst he’s dealt with, not by a longshot; unfortunately kidnapping and torture sort of comes with the territory. Still, torture by it’s very definition is horrible, and while he is sure he can endure it long enough for Robin and the rest of the team to find him, he knows it’s only going to get worse.

The muscles in his thighs are already screaming at him, and he allows himself another moment or two to think about just how shitty things are going to get, before he takes a deep breath and does his best to centre himself.

He can’t go into full mediation, not without the guards noticing, and he isn’t eager to find out how they plan on keeping his attention. He can slip into a lighter form of mediation though, still alert and aware, but just enough to let his mind go somewhere else.

He’s not thinking of anywhere in particular, in fact he’s not really thinking at all, just letting time pass him by, because that’s all he can do. This is a waiting game. His team are looking for him, they _will_ find him, he just has to hold out until they do. Every minute that passes is a minute closer to freedom.

It might have been minutes or hours before a sudden blast of cold water jerks him back to himself. He takes a deep, spluttering breath, absolutely dripping in icy cold water, which the guard holding the bucket has obviously thrown on him.

“Thanks, I needed a shower.” He quips, but he’s sure they can see way he’s shivering. The warehouse had been cool before, and sitting around shirtless hadn’t exactly been fun, but the addition of icy cold water takes it from ‘a bit chilly’ to ‘really freaking cold.’

Ignoring the way the guards are smirking nastily, he brings his breath back under control and tries to take stock of his condition.

The muscles in his legs are pretty much screaming from overuse right now, and even after the bone leeching cold starts to dissipate, fine tremors still run up and down his legs, a flashing neon warning sign that they’re going to collapse out from under him if he doesn’t stop using them.

None of the other pains have gone away, and in fact the bruises and welts from the latest beating are even more painful now as some truly impressive bruising sets in. His ankle is still agony, and really until he gets a chance to elevate it properly, and preferably some quality painkillers, that’s not going to change any time soon.

Unfortunately, neither of those two things is going to happen right now, and it’s going to get worse. Before he can talk himself out of it he settles his weight back, allowing the muscles in his thighs to relax.

He thought the ankle was agony before, he was wrong. Or maybe he was right, and this is something far beyond agony. It’s not the worst pain he’s ever felt, that’s what he tells himself, but really he’s having trouble finding something to compare it to now.

Maybe the first time he’d been shot, although he supposes that had been more shock and surprise and, yes, a little bit of fear. Maybe some of the times he’d been poisoned, some of Ivy’s concoctions were _nasty_. Really, there were a lot of options to choose from, but broken bones were they’re own brand of pain, and not really something you could just ‘get used to’ no matter how many times you’d done it before.

After a few moments of burning twisting _crushing_ pain he tries to lift himself up again, but his thigh muscles are in revolt, still shaking from exhaustion, and there’s no way he’s going to be able to use them right now. He’s going to have to wait.

It’s harder now to try and slide back into the light trance he’d been in, the pain is almost too much to ignore, and it feels like it takes him a lot longer to get in the right headspace that he’s able to push it aside. He manages, because he’s awesome like that, but he has a nasty suspicion that there’s going to come a time when the pain and exhaustion outweighs his ability to ignore it.

He tries to give his legs as long as he can for them to recover, but eventually the pain in his ankle gets bad enough that he _has_ to take his weight off it, even if it means leaving the kneeling position he’d been left in and facing whatever punishment that would incur.

With a cautious breath he tries to lift himself again. His thigh muscles seem to burn and sear, a white-hot sort of pain rushing through them his body’s way of saying ‘no’. He ignores it, and forces his legs to obey him.

Time passes, or at least he assumes it does. Thirst and hunger are added to his ever-growing list of physical discomforts, and he has to alternate between kneeling upright and straining his thigh muscles or sitting back and crushing his ankle. The light tremors in his legs have spread, and even when he’s not able to meditate the world seems further away. He doesn’t know how long he’s been kneeling here, but clearly it’s been long enough that exhaustion is settling in.

As he gets tired, he starts to drift, not the subtle sort of drifting that happened when he was meditating though, he actually finds himself closing his eyes, sometimes listing sideways.

The guards never fail to wake him back up. He’s had enough buckets of ice cold water poured over him that he seems to be more or less constantly shivering from the cold now, or maybe that’s exhaustion. It’s probably both.

He tries to keep upright, tries not to give them any excuse to drench him, or reason to come up with a new way of keeping him alert. Eventually though his body betrays him. He finds himself listing sideways and tries to correct himself, but his body doesn’t seem to get the message, and he finds himself hitting the ground, unable to muster the energy to drag himself back onto his knees.

He doesn’t react to the first bucket of water that drenches him, or to the second, beyond a small huff that could be mistaken for a sigh. His muscles have given up the ghost, and really it’s probably not the best idea to blatantly ignore the guards yelling at him, but right now getting a little wet is preferable to trying to move.

Eventually they seem to get the hint, and he’s being dragged up again, only to list sideways the moment they let go of him. It’s not that he’s _trying_ to fall over, it’s just that he’s not trying to stay upright anymore.

He doesn’t know how many times they try it again, everything has gotten a little fuzzy around the edges, but a stinging slap to the face jars him back into focus, blinking hard.

Stacker has appeared. He’s good at that, always showing up to drag Nightwing back to reality.

There’s also a large tub of water in front of him that couldn’t have been quick to move, and wow he must have really been out of it to have missed that. He can also guess what’s going to happen next, and it’s going to suck.

It’s not the most imaginative torture method, but then again neither were beatings, sleep deprivation and stress positions. You didn’t need to get creative to hurt someone, the tried and true methods worked just as well.

“Back with us now boy?” Stackers asks with faux concern, “You seemed a little out of it there.”

“Yeah, well it’s been a while since my last coffee, and your guys aren’t the most interesting company.”

“Well let’s have a little chat then, I’d hate for you to get bored. We’ll start simple. What is your access code for The Mountain’s security system?”

“Password. One word. All lower case.” Nightwing answers with an easy shrug.

The water is ice cold, just like in the buckets, actually he can see even see ice cubes floating in it. Everything is numb for a few moments, but as soon as his body seems to realise just how cold it is his face starts to sting fiercely, especially his broken nose and the cuts on his lips.

The thing is he’s trained himself to hold his breath for a really long time, and not just for situations like this. Really, the mount of times he’d ended up in the murky waters of Gotham bay had made the training pretty much vital. The most important thing is to stay calm, panicking only increases your heartrate and makes you run out of oxygen faster.

Even if it takes longer though, it’s only a matter of time before his lungs start burning and the pain in his head is reaching critical levels. He starts to struggle, can’t help himself really, his lungs telling him in no uncertain terms that he needs _air_.

Finally he is dragged out, chest heaving as he desperately gasps for air. He doesn’t even notice the hands on him, not until his chin is being lifted to make him look at Stacker.

“I’ll ask you again. The access code.”

It takes him a moment to get enough air to reply, “I told you, it’s password. Terrible security I know but-“

He doesn’t get to finish before he’s being dunked again, barely has time to close his mouth so water doesn’t rush in. Again, he keeps calm as long as he can. Again, it doesn’t matter, because he inevitably runs out of air. Again, he’s dragged back out of the water just before he gives in and takes a breath.

This time he keeps his eyes on Stacker from the start, leaning back away from the hand that comes up to touch his face again and glaring a warning.

“Just tell me what I want to know, and this can stop.”

Nightwing just glares.

He’s dunked. Again.

Dragged out. A question, the access codes, and Nightwing wants to laugh because his access codes are _useless_ anyway, wiped the moment he was reported captured because that’s the protocol, and Stacker is smart enough to _know_ that.

As he goes under again he knows this is pointless. The information Stacker is after is useless, except as a stepping stone. Stacker wants him to answer one useless question, and then he’ll ask another, and another, except it will be harder to resist because he would have already given in once.

That’s the theory anyway, the reasoning behind the torture. Torture doesn’t work though. Torture doesn’t get results, anyone who’s done their research knows this, but men like Stacker still think that they’re better, think they can succeed where others have failed. Hell, maybe they just like hurting people.

Watching Stacker’s face, seeing the look in his eyes as Nightwing is dragged from the brink of drowning again and again, he knows the man is enjoying this. That just makes him more determined to disappoint.

Ice cold water, burning on his face, and this time when they let him up he only has time to gasp in half a breath before he’s being plunged back in. Again, and again, until finally his lungs give out. He takes a breath.

The water burns down his throat, and he thrashes in blind panic as it hits his lungs, opening his mouth in a soundless scream.

He’s being dragged back out, he feels the men moving around him with something like urgency, pulling him further way and letting him fall the floor. He can’t hear anything though, not over his own gasping and wheezing as he doubles over and coughs up what feels like the entire tub full of water. It feels like an eternity, but he finally manages to catch enough of a breath to stop coughing, focuses on getting as much air as possible.

Finally he manages to wheeze out “Y’overdid it there. ‘S’the problem with waterboarding, too easy t’go past ‘nearly drowned’ and ‘drowned’.”

Exhausted by saying even that much he sags back to the floor.

“Out of everything you could say, you’re critiquing my methods?” Stacker asks, and for the first time he’s not being a smooth bastard, he seems genuinely incredulous.

“Well, yeah?” Nightwing says, voice weak and hoarse from coughing, “Can’t get what y’want if I’m dead.”

“Well, I’ll take that under advisement for next time,” Stacker promises darkly, “Take him.”

Nightwing couldn’t resist the hands lifting him up if he wanted to, and he lets himself be dragged back to his cage. He’s never been happy to be locked in a cage before, but this seems to be the exception as he slowly drags himself to the back corner and lies down, trying not to sign in relief as he’s finally able to lie down. Judging by the harsh laugh he hears from on of the men guarding his cage he’s not successful.

Before he can get too comfortable something hits him in the chest, and he opens his eyes with a small groan, looking down at the bottle of water that’s been tossed at him.

His thirst had been ignored until now, but after a moment of thinking it occurs to him that unless you count the water he swallowed while being waterboarded, he hasn’t had a drink since he was taken, which has to have been at least twenty-four hours ago, probably closer to thirty-six by now. That’s _not_ a good thing. The fact he’d stopped feeling thirsty was even worse.

He knows he can’t just drink the whole bottle though, and so he limits himself to a small sip, and then a few moments later, a slightly larger one. It takes him a good while, but he manages to drink about half the bottle before his stomach is lurching enough that he has to stop.

Taking his body’s warning, he sets the bottle aside and lies back down, fully intending to take advantage of this reprieve to get some rest. He’s just closing his eyes and about to start drifting off when the entire cage is flooded with bright light. He opens his eyes, screwing them shut again and putting his bound hands over them, blocking out the light enough that he can open them again and try to see what’s going on.

Oh. They’ve installed an overhead spotlight. That’s probably going to get really annoying.

Still, he can avoid it somewhat, he rolls away and brings his hands up to cover his face. It’s not perfect, but it makes it dark enough that he’ll probably be able to drift off, given how exhausted he is.

At this point sound starts playing, loudly, from a pair of large speakers set up on either side of his cage, pointing in. It’s not exactly easy listening either, it’s random, almost like white noise but not quite, changing often enough that there is no way he can get used to it.

It’s loud enough that he swears he can hear it in his _bones_ , and with his hands bound together, even if he wanted to stop blocking out the fiercely bright light, he wouldn’t be able to get them over both of his ears anyway.

Clearly, they’re going to do everything they can to deprive him of sleep.

It’s working too, despite his exhaustion there is no way he’ll be able to sleep like this, a combination of the bright light, the pain from his injuries and the sound that almost seems like a physical presence in his cage making it impossible to relax.

He can’t even focus enough to go into the light meditation he’d been able to manage before, any sort of rational thought is drowned out, and there’s nothing he can do except lie here and suffer.

He can endure this though. He has to.

The entire world disappears. There is nothing except the pain from his injuries, the scorching light, and the _noise_.

Ever present. All encompassing. _Noise_.

* * *

It almost feels like a relief when they drag him out of the cage and force him to kneel for another round of twenty questions. Stacker is there. A half dozen henchmen are there. The tub full of icy water is _definitely there_.

The sudden _absence_ of sound is disorientating, his ears ringing painfully in what feels like total silence. It takes him a few moments to realise that Stacker is actually talking to him, the words seeming to wash over him.

Before he can even try to figure out what was being said he’s being dunked into the water. It’s not any more fun than it was last time, but the sudden chill on his face does seem to force his brain to start _working_ again.

He’s pulled back out, and after a couple of moments desperately dragging in ragged breaths he is finally able to focus on stacker enough to hear what he’s saying.

“Your stubbornness is commendable, but this is getting ridiculous. This can all be over, just give me the access codes and I’ll let you sleep.” Stacker promises.

“You think my team is that stupid?” Nightwing grates out, “My codes were removed from the system the moment they knew I was taken. They’re useless now.”

Stacker looks at him for a moment, before smiling, a small, smug smile that sets Nightwing’s teeth on edge.

“I know. Your codes are useless to me. That’s the first time you’ve answered one of my questions truthfully, I call that progress. Someone like you surely has back doors into the system, contingencies in case you are locked out. You’re going to give them to me.”

“Oh screw you,” Nightwing snaps, exhausted and stressed and pushed well past pretending to be agreeable, “I’m not going to give you anything. You think this is going to work? You think you’re actually going to get anything _useful_ out of me? You’re an idiot.”

Nightwing expects the ringing slap as Stacker loses his composure, just as he expects the hands that fist in his hair and plunge him back into the icy water, holding him under. They keep holding though, even as he thrashes when he starts to run out of air, as bubbles escape from his lips, as he slowly loses the energy to struggle against the water and takes a breath.

He breathes water, and Stacker still holds him under.

For the first time he thinks maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to make Stacker angry. And then as the edges of his vision start to go dark he doesn’t think anything at all.

When he comes back to himself he’s lying on the ground coughing up what feels like an entire lungful of water, and it takes him a moment to realise that someone seems to be straddling him.

“Dude, personal space.” He says, or, well, tries to say anyway, but nothing comes out. Even trying to talk is enough to exhaust him, and he closes his eyes, focusing on trying to breath. The message must have gotten across though, because he feels the weight shift off him.

He tries to take advantage of it an take a deep breath, only to immediately regret it. Beyond the burning in his lungs there’s a deep, heavy pain in his chest, and he can tell that he has several ribs that are at least cracked, some may even be broken.

They’d really gone full effort on the CPR, which is probably why he’s still alive. Cracked and broken ribs suck, but it starts to settle in that if they’d been just a little less concerned about bringing him back he would have died here. He still could.

It seems one of the men, probably the medic, actually agrees with him on this one, and is even arguing with Stacker about it.

“Do you _want_ to kill him? If you push him under again you will. You might have killed him already, we’ll have to watch for secondary drowning-“

He stops paying attention to the words as the medic argues back and forward with Stacker. The medic doesn’t seem too concerned about his well-being, it seems he just doesn’t want to have to do this again with someone else because they killed their only source of information.

It seems the medic wins the argument, because instead of being asked more questions Nightwing finds himself being carried back to the cell. They’ve even wrapped an emergency blanket around him, probably because he hasn’t been able to stop shivering since they pulled him out.

The light is still shining. The speakers are still blasting sound into the cage, and everything still sucks, but it’s not enough to keep him from passing out.

* * *

He’s being dragged from the cell, again, and at first he thinks it’s for another round of torture. It takes him a few moments to realise that there are men running all around in disarray, there’s shouting and shooting and he even sees one man go flying past and thud into a wall.

He can’t help but grin at the sight, because that probably means the cavalry is here.

Stacker doesn’t seem inclined to back down though, ordering his men to stand and fight. The moment he spots the men dragging Nightwing over he orders them to drop him.

“It seems your friends have found us.”

“They’re good like that,” Nightwing says evenly, “If you surrender peacefully they’ll take you in without having to break any bones. Probably.”

Stacker has well and truly lost his composure, he’s pacing, glaring angrily at his men, barking out contradictory orders as his carefully laid plans collapse around him.

Of course, that doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous, and he grabs hold of Nightwing, by the hair, _again_ , taking out his sidearm and setting the muzzle firmly against Nightwing’s temple.

“Your friends are going to let me walk right out of here, or I’ll put a bullet in your skull. Now, _walk_.”

“I _can’t_ ,” Nightwing growls, “You broke my ankle, remember?”

Stacker flicks the safety off, jamming the handgun hard into his temple, “Walk or I shoot you here and take my chances running.”

“Fine,” Nightwing says, “But don’t expect speed.”

Gritting his teeth he gets his good leg under him and pushes himself to stand, gingerly putting his left foot down and testing it to see if it can bear his weight.

The pain is enough that he sways, nearly passing out, but as the gun moves from his temple to be jammed under his throat and angled towards his brain stem he knows he has no choice. He takes one hobbling step, and then another, trying to ignore the way his vision swims and his whole body shakes from pain and exhaustion.

“There you go,” Stacker praises, tightening his grip on his hair, “All you needed was a little extra motivation. _Walk._ ”

Step. Pain. Step. _Pain_. Slowly they make their way towards to exit, Stacker’s grip on the gun never wavering.

They reach the exit.

Nightwing’s team was there first.

Robin is in the front, bo staff held in an easy guard position. His lip is still split from when Nightwing had been captured, and there’s a butterfly bandage on the cut on his temple, but that only serves to make his glare even fiercer as he stares down Stacker.

Nightwing is willing to be that Robin has left a _lot_ of guards unconscious today.

Superboy is standing at Robin’s right shoulder, holding the pair of guards who’d been guarding the door by the back of their shirts. With a grin at Nightwing he tosses them aside and dusts his hands off.

Wondergirl and Batgirl are to Robin’s left. Wondergirl has a tight grip of her lasso, and Batgirl has a handful of batarangs and looks like she’s just _itching_ to throw them somewhere sensitive.

“Your men are captured, unconscious or running, and you are outnumbered and well and truly outmatched. Surrender Stacker.” Robin says, voice hard and unyielding.

Stacker snarls, tightening his grip on Nightwing’s hair.

“How do you-“

“Know your name? That was easy to find. Lieutenant Nicholas Stacker, sorry, _former_ Lieutenant Nicholas Stacker. Served in the United States Army, until you were dishonourably discharged for misappropriation of military resources. You helped steal a truck full of grenade launchers and tried to sell them on the black market. Seems like you were able to recruit quite a few other discharged and disgraced soldiers to join you.”

“Listen here you little shit! You don’t know anything-“ Stacker yells, and Nightwing doesn’t even need to see him to know his face is red with anger.

“You’ve been trying to set yourself up as mercenaries ever since, but really you’re just thieves,” Robin continues mercilessly, “Using your knowledge and connections to steal from army bases and warehouses, selling them to the highest bidder. Is that where you got the idea to try and ‘steal’ metahumans? Did you have buyers already lined up? Ambitious, I’ll have to admit. Stupid, but ambitious.”

 “That’s it!” Stacker yells, and the gun is gone from under Nightwing’s chin now, pointed squarely at Robin, “I should have killed you back at the docks you-“

Stacker tenses, finger tightening on the trigger, only to scream as the handgun is suddenly crushed into scrap metal. Some of his fingers may have also been crushed, but Superboy doesn’t look sorry about that at all, in fact judging by the way he’s grinning as he tackles Stacker to the ground, he’s quite pleased about it.

Without Stacker holding him up, Nightwing’s legs decide that they don’t want to be holding him up anymore. Before he can fall to the floor however Robin is there catching him and lowering him gently to the ground. He frowns at the chains on his hands, before taking out a miniaturized plasma cutter and carefully cutting them off, throwing them away with more force than was really necessary.

“Hey, sorry about that. I had to get his gun pointed away from your head so Superboy could take him down before he shot you-“ Robin is apologising, rambling just a little.

“Good thinking,” Nightwing interrupts, and he’s almost giddy with relief, “Thanks for the save. How’d you find me? They ditched my suit and anything that had trackers in it.”

“They ditched the trackers on _you_ , not the trackers I’d put on _them_ while we were fighting,” Robin smirks, but his face falls as he starts to look over Nightwing’s injuries, “I’m just sorry it took so long. I had the trackers, but they had a jammer on this place and it took me a long time to narrow down your location. Too long.”

“Hey, none of that,” Nightwing chides gently, hating the guilty look on Robin’s face, “I knew you’d find me, I just had to hold out until you did.”

Robin is frowning at the deep bruising all over Nightwing’s chest, “Are there any serious injuries we need to be aware of?”

“Well my left ankle is definitely broken, maybe some of the other bones in the foot as well, I haven’t really had the chance for an x-ray yet,” Nightwing says with a tired smirk, “At least one broken rib, several more cracked, maybe a few more broken as well. I also got a little bit drowned. They had to do CPR, that’s where most of the cracked ribs are from.”

Robin is instantly alert and talking on his radio, “Miss Martian I’m coming to the bioship with Nightwing now. He needs immediate medical attention, we’ll have to leave cleanup duty to the others.”

“Robin, it’s not-“

“If you say it’s not that bad I will punch you. Lightly. Drowning is dangerous, or did you forget the lecture you gave me after Killer Croc threw me into the bay?” Robin demands stubbornly.

“Well, since you put it that way I have to agree with you, don’t I?” Nightwing says with a small smile.

“Yes, you do,” Robin says with a smile of his own.

“Superbboy, if you’re done restraining Stacker can you give me a hand getting Nightwing to the bioship? I’m sure Wondergirl and Batgirl can watch Stacker.”

Superboy looks up from where he’s been glaring at Stacker, who has been tied up, very thoroughly by the look of it.

“Sure thing,” Superboy agrees, and Wondergirl and Batgirl move over to take over glaring duty with grins that look just a little too bloodthirsty for Nightwing’s liking.

Before he can warn his friends about things like restraint and not threatening bad guys _too much_ , Superboy is lifting him gently and carrying him outside. If Nightwing was someone else he might be embarrassed by being carried princess style, but he’s been friends with Superboy for a long time, and this is hardly the first time the super strong meta has carried him while he’s been injured. He doesn’t have to feel bad about needing help from a friend.

“Glad to have you back man,” Superboy says quietly, as if he’d heard Nightwing thinking, “You really had us worried there.”

“No arguments here. I knew you guys were coming for me, but Stacker’s hospitality really sucked.” Nightwing admits.

Superboy smiles at him but it’s a little sad. Nightwing wants to tell him not to feel guilty about not being there sooner, but experience tells him that the stronger metahumans will be feeling guilty for a while. They hate being reminded that for all their skill, the ‘normal’ human members of the team are easier to hurt.

Miss Martian has landed the bioship in front of them though, and Robin and Superboy waste no time getting him on board. The ship has adapted to their needs, expanding to accommodate a larger medical bay with a proper bed. Superboy lowers him gently into it, and Robin starts hooking up the equipment.

“Thanks Superboy, Miss Martian and I can take it from here. Are you going to be alright taking care of cleanup?” Robin asks.

“Yeah, we’ve got it sorted. Take care of him for us.” Superboy claps Robin on the shoulder as he passes.

“Of course, see you back at the mountain.”

The ship is lifting off gently, deceptively smooth for how fast they’re flying. Alien technology is _nice_.

Robin attaches a pulse oximeter to his finger, frowning a little at Nightwing’s vital signs.

“You’re breathing is a little compromised, which isn’t too surprising given you were drowned. Do you mind me setting you up with an oxygen mask?” Robin asks.

“Yeah, go for it,” Nightwing says with a nod. He knows Robin is being careful to give him a choice and explaining everything he’s doing, and as much as Nightwing wants to tell him it’s ok, he does appreciate it.

Robin gently sets up the mask, and after the initial discomfort it is a lot easier for Nightwing to breath with it on. He nods at Robin gratefully and settles into the mattress. Medical beds are notoriously stiff, but this is the most comfortable he’s been in days. Robin smiles a little at him and seems to know what he’s thinking, because after checking a few more readings he grabs a few blankets and settles them over Nightwing.

“Your temperature is a little low,” Robin says seriously, but he’s smiling a little, “Probably because they stole your shirt.”

“Or all the times they decided to dunk my head underwater.” Nightwing grumbles.

Robin looks a little conflicted, like he’s not sure if he should be uncomfortable talking about Nightwing’s torture, but after a beat he shrugs, “Yeah, I imagine that’d do it too. Did they go for the ice cubes as well?”

“Yeah, no half measures for these guys. I mean, they weren’t exactly creative about it…” Nightwing trails off.

“But they don’t need to be creative,” Robin finishes with a grim smile, “The simple methods still hurt like hell, even if they’re useless for getting reliable information.”

“Yeah, you’d think bad guys would know better.” Nightwing grumbles, and he’s grateful that Robin understands, even if he hates the fact that that’s from _experience_.

Robin snorts, “Well, if they had any sense, they wouldn’t be bad guys, would they?”

Nightwing huffs a laugh as well, “Good point.”

His voice is getting a little weak though, and Robin looks at him, concerned, before his eyes soften a little.

“When did you last sleep Nightwing?” He asks gently.

“Does passing out count?” Nightwing shoots back.

“Afraid not.” Robin answers wryly.

“I managed to catch an hour or two on the first day, at least I think it was the first day. How long have I been gone?” Nightwing asks.

“Three and a half days,” Robin admits with a worried frown, “Closer to four. You should get some rest.”

Nightwing nods, because now that the adrenalin from being held hostage and the euphoria of being rescued has worn off he’s crashing hard.

“I think I have to agree with you there Robin.” He says with a yawn.

“Sleep,” Robin says, pulling the blankets up to cover Nightwing better, “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Good,” Nightwing murmurs, because he really doesn’t want to be alone. He doesn’t have any time to feel self-conscious about it, because the moment his eyes close he’s out like a light.

* * *

He’s drifting comfortably, not quite awake yet but not asleep either, and he doesn’t really feel like trying to move because for the first time in a long time he’s actually pretty comfortable. There’s a hazy sort of feeling, some of it is probably that he’s still half asleep, but he also recognises the drowsiness that goes hand in hand with good painkillers.

Shifting slightly, he feels the familiar pull of an IV taped in the crook of his elbow, probably to keep him hydrated and medicated. He grumbles a little at the discomfort and tries to wriggle deeper under the blankets covering him.

There’s a deep, soft laugh from somewhere on his right, and then someone is pulling the blankets back up for him and tucking them around him, brushing a hand gently over his forehead.

“Sleep Dick.” Bruce says gently.

Nightwing- no, he’s home now, he’s _safe_ , he can be _Dick_ again, Dick almost wants to open his eyes, to talk to Bruce, but more sleep sounds like a wonderful idea.

“’Kay Bruce.” He mumbles softly and goes back to sleep.

The next time he wakes up he feels more alert, and he blinks his eyes open blearily, looking around. The lights are dim, but he can mostly make out the room. It’s one of the recovery rooms in the medical area of the Mountain.

There’s an armchair in one of the corners, and Tim is curled up in it, wearing his casual clothes and sunglasses, much like Dick’s ‘off duty’ look. He’s also drooling a little on the arm of the chair, and snoring lightly. It doesn’t look comfortable.

He must have made some concerned expression, because he hears another soft laugh from Bruce, who’s sitting in the other chair beside him.

“I’ve tried to move him into a more comfortable position, three times. He always ends up back like that. I’ve also told him to go rest, but he wanted to stay until you woke up,” Bruce says, looking at Tim with a fond sort of exasperation.

“He okay?” Dick asks, voice a little scratchy, and Bruce is passing him a small cup of ice chips, which he takes gratefully, easing the dryness in his throat.

“He was worried when you were caught. He pushed himself a little far tracking you down, the whole team had to work together to force him to get a few hours of sleep while the tracking program was calculating. He did good work though, especially given the level of signal dampeners that warehouse had. He led the rescue too.” Bruce says, voice tinged with pride and worry.

“He’s come a long way,” Dick agrees with a smile.

“That he has. Do you want the breakdown?” Bruce asks.

“Yeah,” Dick sighs, “Might as well get it out of the way. What am I looking at?”

“Your ankle is broken, obviously, and there was some damage to the ligaments. Your second and third meta-tarsals also have hairline fractures. Thankfully it was set reasonably well, whoever bandaged it did an acceptable job. You have three broken ribs, one older and two reasonably fresh, and two more cracked. The cuts on your wrists from where the manacles rubbed raw were infected, and have been cleaned and bandaged. The doctors also set your nose properly and fixed up the cuts on your face and lips. Thankfully you didn’t have any facial fractures apart from the nose. You still have a low grade concussion, likely from a few days ago judging by the contusions.”

Bruce is scowling a little now, clearly angry, and Dick wouldn’t want to be in Stacker’s shoes anytime soon, “Your chest and back are covered in bruising, some of it quite deep. There was a little internal bruising of your kidneys, and you might have some blood in your urine for a couple of days, but thankfully none of it needed surgery. The most troubling thing was some water in your lungs, and you nearly developed pneumonia, which coupled with the mild hypothermia you had would have been dangerous. As it is your lungs are still a little congested and you need to take it easy and _rest_ for the next week or so, but you don’t need an oxygen mask anymore.”

Bruce’s face is serious, mouth downturned as he finishes softly, “We could have lost you.”

“You didn’t. Tim and the rest of the team found me in time. You didn’t lose me,” Dick tries to reassure Bruce, but hearing his injuries laid out like that has shaken him a little and his voice wobbles.

Before Dick can look down Bruce is laying a calming hand on his shoulder.

“We didn’t lose you,” He agrees, “But we could have. So let us worry about you, ok? Let us take care of you, so we know you’re alright. Let us yell at you when you try to get out of bed too early because you push yourself too soon. Let Tim bring you soup, because he feels guilty that he had to leave you behind when he escaped. You’re probably going to get annoyed at your team for hovering, but they were all scared for you. I was too.”

Dick pushes himself up slightly to surprise Bruce with a fierce hug.

“I know,” Dick whispers, “I know you were scared. I was scared too. But I’ll always fight to come home, you _know_ that.”

“I know,” Bruce says, arms gentle as he hugs Dick back, “I know, but I’ll always worry about you. Always.”

Dick sighs and leans his head on Bruce’s shoulder, “I know. I worry about you too you know. It’s what family does.”

Dick can’t see Bruce’s face, but he still knows he’s smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> *dies* Would you believe I planned this to be around 5k at the most? Still not super happy with the ending, mostly because I never really write the comfort part of hurt/comfort, but I hope it's good still.


End file.
